Author Archives: Jane Austin

June 20, 2018Comments Off on Baileys boss flies the flag for women in ads at Cannes Lions

By Jane Austin in Cannes It’s an interesting and often disturbing exercise to revisit movies from your youth in light of the MeToo and TimesUp movements and see how outdated and sexist the portrayal of women seems. The actress Molly ...

June 19, 2018Comments Off on Cannes Lions: Twitter makes its bid to hijack festival

By Jane Austin in Cannes Cannes Lions is the ultimate microcosm of the ad industry, unwittingly exposing its warts as much as its more admirable qualities. If you wanted to learn about what it’s like to work in adland, this ...

June 18, 2018Comments Off on Trump and Sorrell: the reality behind two great illusionists?

By Jane Austin in Cannes Were there any deliberate parallels that were being drawn between Michael Wolff’s description of the ascent of US president Donald Trump and the demise of advertising’s own Sun King Sir Martin Sorrell in the Cannes ...

June 24, 2017Comments Off on Jane Austin: adland needs to do more to counter stereotyping than award a Glass Lion

“Why do you need yet another panel on diversity when you have the Glass Lion?” observed an ECD out in Cannes this week who shall remain nameless. With sexist ads back in the news this week, it is a comment ...

Snapchat’s Ferris wheel gets Arthur Sadoun in a spin The Snapchat Ferris wheel in front of the Palais this year has made one important French man very, very angry. Ad Age reports that Publicis Groupe boss Arthur Sadoun stated the ...

The robots are taking over at Publicis Groupe Publicis Groupe is stopping all of its agencies around the world from participating in awards shows and trade shows for over a year, so no Cannes for them next year. The cash ...

Cannes Lions has long been referred to as adland’s Oscars. And in the same spirit, much excitement has long revolved around who will win the Film Grand Prix. But the extent to which this is still valid is debateable in ...

June 21, 2017Comments Off on Jane Austin at Cannes: human rights, civil rights, Mario Testino and even an ad or two

The UN steps in to ban stereotypes in ads You know there’s trouble when the UN shows up. The United Nations was in Cannes this week to gather together the world’s biggest advertisers, including Google and Facebook, to combat “the ...